100
Adidas has shown, there needs to be a counterweight on the side of brand
management that can explain which communication activities pay o for
the brand and in what way, and which can damage the brand.
e technology lead will probably be based in the IT area of the com-
pany. A good connection there is of utmost relevance. Ideally, the tech-
nology lead will be in charge of the business intelligence application, into
which all data from sales, marketing, purchasing, service, etc. ows.
Valuable insights for the planning of future campaign and sales activities
can be derived from this.
However, many companies have not yet established central data stor-
age. en it is even more important to bring together the information
from the various systems such as the online shop, CRM, ERP and the
channels managed in the communication units such as the website, social
media channels and the email system. A data strategist helps identify the
right sources and discover correlations. When tapping into source mate-
rial, it helps if someone knows scraping, which is the automated extrac-
tion of data from websites, applications or documents, and can turn it
into a set of structured raw data. For example, information can be
extracted from websites of potential customers (see Gervalla 2020). e
analyst, in turn, examines the data and identies trends, develops predic-
tions, and thus transforms data into information. To do this, he or she
must master databases and how to query them, be procient in business
intelligence tools, and also know something about visualizing data.
e data strategist or data scientist (the terms are not always used uni-
formly and also change) in turn translates the questions of his team into a
strategy for the development and preparation of the data sources, he knows
or has mastered the methods of machine learning, including, for example,
software such as Matlab or programming languages like Python and R.
Exciting new roles are emerging at the boundaries of existing disci-
plines, for example between business and technology or between data
analysis and its visualization. On the visualization side, there is the so-
called UX designer, who takes care of the most positive user experience
(UX) possible. For the UX designer, it’s all about usability and the inter-
action design of a product or service. An infographic designer is familiar
with the techniques it takes to make connections visible to the viewer,
highlighting the important things and leaving out the unimportant ones.
He or she knows the importance of scales, colors, chart types, and is also
H.-W. Eckert